This Month in Forest 🌲

Welcome to the February edition of This Month in Forest! We are excited to share the latest updates and improvements to the Forest Filecoin client (and more!). ❄️

Highlights

ChainSafe Filecoin services

We created a one-pager with all Filecoin-related ChainSafe projects. Check it out at filecoin.chainsafe.io.

Snapshot RPC testing improvements

We have been working on improving the RPC snapshot testing process. Since last month, we have added more tests and extended the coverage to Ethereum RPC methods requiring an index. This will help us ensure the RPC methods work correctly and consistently across different implementations. ♾️

NV25 upgrade coming soon

network n. & v. trans. [From net "reduced sligthly from gross" + "work"] 1 n. The antisynergetic interconnection of noncompatible nodal systems divided by a common protocol 2 v. trans. To reduce [net] the work rate (of a computing resource) by adding it to a network.
The Computer Contradictionary, Stan Kelly-Bootle

We are preparing for the upcoming NV25 Teep upgrade. It has been slightly delayed, but the additional time has allowed us to pack more features and improvements. Track the current plan and progress here. 🚀

Thanks, Aryan!

@akaladarshi has been actively contributing to Forest in the past few weeks and has been an immense help in improving Forest. We are grateful for his contributions and look forward to our continued collaboration. 👏

Development

Documentation 📚

documentation n. [Latin docomentum "warning"] 1 The promised literature that fails to arrive with the supporting hardware. 2 A single, illegible, photocopied page of proprietary caveats and suggested infractions. 3 The detailed, unindexed description of a superseded package.
The Computer Contradictionary, Stan Kelly-Bootle

We are continuously improving Forest's documentation. Check out the newest guide on filtering RPC methods here.

CARv2 support

It turned out we didn't support CARv2! 😱 But we do now. Kind of. We have added support for reading CARv2 files but are using our own implementation to index compressed files. Read more about it here. 📁

Switch to ARM64 in CI

Following the recent GitHub announcement, we have switched most of our CI jobs to ARM64. This resulted in a significant speedup in the CI pipeline and decreased the overall cost. No worries, we are still testing on AMD64 as well, and both platforms are supported with our Docker images and release artefacts. 🚀

RPC improvements and fixes

We have been working on improving the RPC methods and fixing some bugs. The most notable additions are:

• Filecoin.EthTraceReplayBlockTransactions,
• Filecoin.GetActorEventsRaw,
• Filecoin.EthGetFilterLogs

fix n. & v. trans. [Latin figere "to attack with reproaches, to render immovable."] 1 n. A palliative shot in the system's arm, becoming less effective with each application 2 v. trans. To remove [a bug] by redefining the program specification in order to take advantage of an unexpected feature.
The Computer Contradictionary, Stan Kelly-Bootle

And the most notable fixes are:

• Filecoin.EthGetTransactionReceipt (incorrect logs),
• Filecoin.EthGetTransactionReceiptLimite (incorrect logs),
• Filecoin.EthGetLogs (handle null tipsets)

That said, we are happy with the current state of the RPC methods. We fixed all the bugs (we are aware of). 🐛 We'll continue to monitor and improve them as needed. 🔨

Other

As always, see the CHANGELOG for details. Note that it contains primarily client-facing changes, so if you're interested in the nitty-gritty details, you'll need to go through the commit history. 🤓